If the prospect of going to a spa sends you into a deep sleep, you might be the perfect candidate for one of 2013’s biggest beauty trends. London spas are responding to demand from worn-out business travellers by offering the chance to get some shuteye in water beds, relaxation pods and salt-air chambers.

Spas across the capital say they have seen more clients falling asleep during their treatments and are now offering services tailored to provide rest or sleep during the working day.

At the InterContinental on Park Lane, £22.50 will afford you a well-deserved lie-down on the spa’s dry flotation bed. More than a quid a minute to lie on a bed, you ask? They say your fleeting lie-down will afford you “equivalent rest to four hours’ sleep”, which would make it a reasonable 9p for each minute of “equivalent sleep”.

When I went last week, I was covered in layers of towels before the therapist hit a button and I was enveloped by the bed for 20 minutes. It didn’t feel like four hours’ sleep (roughly my nightly average) but I can kind of see why the spa is receiving more bookings from men after a meeting in the hotel or between other treatments.

An industry report commissioned by luxury Italian spa line Comfort Zone earlier this month said spas had noted guests “falling asleep for hours at a time,” and were responding with “more secluded sleep facilities” as a result.

Sarah Russell, who works for the company training spa therapists, says the relaxation rooms and rest areas have traditionally been used for breaks between treatments but are now becoming a fixture in their own right.

“I don’t think people realise how tired they are,” she says. “They don’t always realise how a lack of sleep can weaken their immune systems.”

Lucinda Mabbitt, from the Margaret Dabbs Sole Spa, adds: “It’s more popular in winter than in summer because people don’t have as much holiday rest at this time of year.” In their facility in Liberty, London visitors can sit back in hanging pods and inhale the salt particles being pumped into the air.

The spa calls the 45-minute sessions “powernaps”, and says some clients sleep and others read a magazine while hanging in their pod.

Manager Catherin de Villiers, at The Spa in Dolphin Square, has also noticed clients “showing symptoms of being sleep-deprived” and encourages them to relax or sleep in the veiled Tepidarium, an old word for the bathroom of Roman baths, heated from underground.